Chapter 155 - Book Rabbit

Episode 155

Having made a bold declaration, Arpad himself now looked troubled.

He hesitated several times, a rare occurrence, and finally asked the dragon.

“Will the memories of being with Hilia… also be forgotten?”

-There are no exceptions.

Arpad’s lips parted slightly. They moved several times, but in the end, he could not fully articulate his expression.

But the dragon’s cold, ruthless words did not end there.

-It is not only that.

-The thread of fate that connects you and this woman will also be severed.

“Thread of fate?”

An emotion entirely different from the complex expression and the fleeting regret he had shown just moments before was now clearly revealed.

A distinct sense of rejection and obsession.

“Hilia is my bride. Wasn’t that fact alone supposed to remain unchanged no matter what? If not, there would have been no need for me to call her here through countless regressions.”

-She is still your bride, and will be forever. But the fate between you and her is a separate matter.

Arpad was on guard, as if the dragon were about to take me away.

-However, to connect the slender thread of fate between you and her, you had to undergo innumerable regressions.

-All that power of fate and attraction will completely disappear. Naturally, the fate between you and her will also be severed.

“…….”

For a moment, Arpad was speechless, looking down at me, who was on the verge of disappearing.

At my soul, scattered from his embrace, now reduced to mere fragments.

Arpad gritted his teeth.

“Frankly, it’s dreadful. I detest it intensely.”

-Did you not just say you would not regret any price you paid?

“If it was something I paid, anything would have been fine. There was no lingering attachment either.”

Arpad muttered softly.

“But I just realized there is something. Truly, something I would rather die than have taken from me.”

He said, holding me tightly.

“…But there is no help for it.”

They were the words of a person surrendering everything.

“Even if she is not mine, even if she is not by my side… if she can live.”

With a faintly trembling hand, he drew something from his embrace.

The moment I saw it, I almost screamed in surprise.

‘That is?!’

A ring made of three pink petals.

As if presenting a token he had long possessed but could not bring himself to give, Arpad slipped the ring onto the ring finger of my left hand, which now retained only a semblance of form.

Then Artanus spoke.

-Well done. Even if she is your bride, as she is not a possessor of dragon blood, a medium is necessary, and that will suffice. It is also a fragment of my heart.

“That is not the meaning with which I gave it.”

-It is of no consequence.

Arpad once again ground his teeth at Artanus.

But after slipping on the ring, he handed the fragments of my crumbling soul to Artanus.

Even in that small gesture, how precious he held it, how he did not wish it taken, was clearly visible.

With an attachment he could not bear to relinquish, he asked.

“Even if the fate is severed… is there a way to reconnect it?”

-Since what you connected has been severed, if she connects it from her side, there is a possibility.

Arpad smiled bitterly.

“Then… the possibility is almost nonexistent. I abducted her and always spoke hateful words, so she dislikes me.”

Even if I said it wasn’t true now, Arpad would not hear me anyway. Still, I could not help but speak.

‘No. Arpad. Now or then, I did not dislike you. Rather…….’

Unable to hear my soliloquy, he murmured softly.

“Had I known it would come to this, I should have been kinder and more affectionate. No, I should have been more honest…….”

The dragon, holding the fragments of my soul, declared.

-And the one who must pay the price is not you alone. This child must also struggle.

“Struggle?”

-She must struggle and prevail against the woman who seeks to steal her destiny.

Then Arpad laughed with an irritatingly refreshing smile.

A voice filled with firm belief, incongruous with the situation.

“Ha. As if she could lose. She is the woman I fell for.”

‘…….’

Now I had no body, and of course, no senses.

So it was impossible for my face to flush.

But as if I had a face, it felt hot and embarrassing.

‘Actually… I lost three times.’

I felt a little sorry and very embarrassed that I couldn’t live up to that firm belief.

Artanus placed his hand on Arpad’s forehead.

And, similar to when he showed me this ‘memory’ earlier, he drew a strange light from him.

He superimposed that light onto the ring on my finger. A light vast enough to cover the world was entirely contained within that small ring.

Even without a specific explanation, I understood.

‘So this is the reason I regressed.’

I understood why I was wearing that ring every time I regressed.

Because it was the wedding ring Arpad first gave me.

-Now, as the initiative of the <Book of Fate> has been taken, it will not be easy. Even so, if repeated, you may reclaim your own destiny…….

Artanus’s resonant voice filled the surroundings.

-If you succeed, we may meet again. Bride of my successor.

It sounded as if those words were directed at me.

And the next moment.

The time of the entire world began to reverse.

The incalculably repeated reversal, centered on Arpad, now began centered on the disappearing ‘me’.

If the axis changes, ultimately that regression becomes something different.

In the end, this is the first life I am currently aware of.

Everything began to return to that time I thought was the life before regression.

Amidst the swiftly rewinding time and events, one strange fragment was ‘created’ and inserted.

It was the Emperor and Arpad, meeting in what appeared to be the Imperial treasury.

Emperor Walter Istrid looked at his son with an uncomfortable expression.

“What is the matter all of a sudden? You, who openly opposed everything I did.”

“…I thought I might indulge a whim for a moment.”

“…?”

Arpad picked up a ring from among the various jewels in the treasury, one placed in a corner.

With a gaze as if looking at the most adorable thing in the world.

“This seems suitable.”

With an uncomprehending expression, the Emperor accepted the ring his son offered.

And that ring was safely delivered to me.

And on the night before the wedding, I, who had fallen asleep wearing it, opened my eyes.

“XX!”

* * *

‘Wait, but at that time, the fate between Arpad and me was severed?’

Thinking about it, during the three regressions, my interactions with Arpad were always merely passing encounters.

One could say we missed each other every time.

What changed was in this life, when I sought out Arpad myself.

Perhaps that might be what Artanus meant by ‘connecting from my side’.

Which came first?

Was it because of what happened then that I sought him out?

So that we could reconnect our fate?

Viewed that way, are we now ultimately the result of my choice?

Or are we the result, bound and unable to escape the thread called destiny?

It was not easy to gauge.

Only one thing was clear.

I remembered the smile Arpad showed to save me then.

Also the expression with which he smiled as he chose the ring to be given to me, who would become another man’s wife, and handed it to the Emperor.

Because of that, when I opened my eyes again inside Artanus’s cave.

I realized my vision was terribly blurred.

My sight was obscured because I was crying.

I bowed my head to Arpad, who lay beside me as if fallen.

And kissing his lips, I whispered.

The whisper I could not give him in the memory.

“Actually, I liked you. From the beginning. Even then.”

Romance, Fantasy,